Delight (especially as shown)
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H7522 is a Hebrew noun for favor, acceptance, delight, pleasure, goodwill, desire, or will. Isaiah 49:8 announces a time of favor in which the Lord answers and helps his servant, preserves him, and appoints him as a covenant for the people.
Reader summary
Full entry for רָצוֹן (H7522) · Open the biblical lexicon
H7522 is a Hebrew noun for favor, acceptance, delight, pleasure, goodwill, desire, or will. Isaiah 49:8 announces a time of favor in which the Lord answers and helps his servant, preserves him, and appoints him as a covenant for the people.
The BSB source-word alignment has 56 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include favor (4), as he pleases (3), . . . (2), are His delight (2), but His favor (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 49:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Proverbs (14), Psalms (13), Leviticus (7), Isaiah (6).
H7522 is a Hebrew noun for favor, acceptance, delight, pleasure, goodwill, desire, or will. Isaiah 49:8 announces a time of favor in which the Lord answers and helps his servant, preserves him, and appoints him as a covenant for the people. Jeremiah 6:20 rejects offerings that are not acceptable because the people resist God's word and persist in injustice. Proverbs 8:35 says that the one who finds wisdom finds life and obtains the Lord's favor.
Elsewhere H7522 describes accepted sacrifices, freewill offerings, human desire, royal pleasure, divine delight, and rulers doing as they please. The word opens welcome and purpose but also raises questions about whose pleasure governs. It corrects prosperity formulas that make comfort proof of favor and authority claims that turn a leader's preference into God's will.
H7522 gathers acceptance, goodwill, delight, desire, pleasure, and will. It can describe God's saving favor, acceptable worship, a person's chosen offering, or a powerful ruler's pleasure, so subject, object, covenant setting, and moral result are decisive.
This is what the Lord says: “In the time of favor I will answer You, and in the day of salvation I will help You; I will keep You and appoint You to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land, to apportion its desolate inheritances,
The Lord answers and helps his servant in a time of favor, appointing him as a covenant agent of restoration.
What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please Me.”
Expensive offerings are not acceptable to God when the people reject his instruction and continue a corrupt course.
For whoever finds me finds life and obtains the favor of the Lord.
Finding wisdom is linked with finding life and receiving favor from the Lord.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Delight expressed through voluntary acceptance; God's sovereign pleasure determining what finds favor.
Delight expressed through voluntary acceptance; God's sovereign pleasure determining what finds favor.
delight (especially as shown) BDB: goodwill Usage: (be) acceptable(-ance, -ed), delight, desire, favour, (good) pleasure, (own, self, voluntary) will, as...(what) would.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 56 lexical occurrence verses.
רָצוֹן is built from this root:
Speech shaped by wisdom seeks what is appropriate and beneficial.Proverbs 10:32
Shows that honest behavior pleases God.Proverbs 11:1
The term reveals that God takes pleasure in lives marked by integrity.Proverbs 11:20
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H7522 invites delight in God's gracious welcome while refusing to baptize every desire as good. Isaiah locates favor within God's saving initiative and the servant's restorative mission. Jeremiah shows that costly worship cannot purchase acceptance while a community resists God's word and practices injustice. Proverbs joins favor to wisdom and life. Yet the same semantic field can describe rulers who do as they please, reminding readers that human will becomes dangerous when power lacks accountability.
Christian communities should seek God's pleasure through truth, mercy, justice, and faithful worship, not through superstition or performance. Freewill giving must remain genuinely free, without public pressure, promised returns, or access purchased through donations. Leaders may exercise judgment, but their preferences require Scripture, shared discernment, evidence, consent, and review.
Favor is not immunity from grief or hardship, and lack of visible success is not proof of rejection. God's saving purpose creates humble gratitude and restorative service rather than entitlement.
Isa.49.8
H7522 is a noun whose range includes favor, goodwill, acceptance, delight, pleasure, desire, and will. Possessive relationships and verbal context reveal whether the focus falls on gracious reception, acceptable offering, chosen purpose, or unchecked human preference.
The New Testament applies Isaiah's favorable time to God's saving summons and presents Jesus as the beloved servant and covenant mediator. Believers offer themselves through mercy and obedience, not as payment for access to grace.